52 Terry Pinkard Eldridge, R. (1989). On Moral Personhood: Philosophy, Literature, Criticism, and Self-Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Eldridge, R. (1997). Leading a Human Life: Wittgenstein, Intentionality, and Romanticism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Willem deVries Fichte, lG. (1971). Werke. Edited by I.H. Fichte. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co. Fichte, J.G. (1982). The Science of Knowledge. Edited and translated by P. Heath and l Lachs. FOLK PSYCHOLOGY, THEORIES, AND THE SELLARSIAN ROOTS Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fichte, J.G. (1994). An Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre. In: J.G. Fichte ABSTRACT. Almost fifty years ago, Wilfrid Sellars first proposed that psychological (ed.), Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. concepts are like theoretical concepts. Since then, several different research programs Frank, M. (1997). Unendliche Ann/iherung. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. have been based on this conjecture. This es~y examines what his original claim really Frank, M. (1989). Eitifiihrung in diefriihromantische Asthetik. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. amounted to and what it was supposed to accomplish, and then uses that understanding Friedman, M. (2000). A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer. and Heidegger. Chicago: Open of the original project to investigate the extent to which the later research projects Court. expand on it or depart from it. Hegel, G. (1971). Werke in =wan=ig B/inden. Edited by E. Moldenhauer and K. Markus Michel. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1971. (Abbreviated as Werke and volume number). Hegel, G. (2004) Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1. Introduction: Folk Psychology as Theory Hegel, G. (1989). Science of Logic. Translated by A.V. Miller. New York: Prometheus Books. Horstmann, R. P. (1991). Die Gren=en der Vernunft. Frankfurt a.M.: Anton Hain Verlag. 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AmsterdamINewYork: Rodopi, 2006. 54 Willem de Vries Folk Psychology, Theories, and the Sellarsian Roots 55 picture as a whole, but the rest of the picture seemed so solid, so obvious, that hoary past and extended run, they argue that commonsense psychology is not most preferred trying to find some way to solve the associated "problem of only susceptible to replacement, we should expect it to be replaced. It is not other minds" rather than rethinking the whole picture. only a theory, it is a bad theory. It took several thousand years for folk physics About fifty years ago some brave souls started rethinking the whole to be superceded, even after Aristotle codified it well enough to enable some picture.) Principal among the attempts to revise the whole picture explicitly more or less clear-cut tests. Folk psychology has endured through the first few was Wilfrid Sellars's trail-blazing effort in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of centuries of serious efforts at scientific psychology, but as neuroscience Mind." Sellars proposes that our psychological concepts and terms are like advances, it, too will eventually succumb. We will find ourselves in the theoretical concepts and terms. In Sellars's picture our most primordial seemingly paradoxical position of denying that the psychological concepts in knowledge is not our first-person acquaintance with our own mental states, but terms of which we (currently) understand our own behavior really designate a knowledge of "medium-sized dry goods," the public, physical objects and any robust features of the world. In our current lingo: we'll end up believing events that form the arena within which we conduct our lives. Sellars argues that there are no beliefs. that we should reverse the hitherto standard picture that our knowledge grows The second major project that takes off from Sellars's proposal is not "from the inside out": if we begin with a knowledge of the public objects and concerned with the large-scale picture of the conceptual evolution of events that shape our lives and at least a rudimentary set of metalinguistic, psychological concepts in human society, but the small-scale picture of the particularly semantic, concepts, we would have all the material necessary to individual's development and· application of psychological concepts. If developing the psychological concepts that Cartesians think are simply given psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts, then one should elements of our mental lives. investigate whether the kinds of processes by which psychological concepts Sellars's proposal, radical at the time, struck a chord and has since become are acquired and applied by the individual are like the kinds of processes by enough of a commonplace that many no longer know its provenance. Sellars's which theoretical concepts are acquired and applied. Indeed, in (probably original idea has served as inspiration for subsequent developments that have unbeknownst) tribute to Sellars's suggestion, the investigation of the human picked up the notion that psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts. ability to attribute psychological states to oneself and others and utilize such If psychological concepts are like theoretical concepts, then our use of those attributions to understand, explain, and sometimes predict human behavior is concepts, even in our everyday attributions of psychological states to ourselves often called inquiry into (or the theory of) Theory of Mind.3 A number of and others, is like using or applying a theory. Commonsense psychology is psychologists are vigorously pursuing this project, e.g. Janet Astington, Alison itself, then, really like a theory. Gopnik, Josef Perner, Henry Wellman, Alan Leslie, and Paul Harris. Since While Sellars's proposal has